Activision and Electronic Arts have reached an out-of-court settlement in their portion of the legal battle over EA's hiring of Jason West and Vince Zampella, reports Bloomberg (thanks Develop). The case involving the two former bosses at Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward is still scheduled to be heard in court, though the attorney for the pair suggests today's settlement reflects on that case. "Activision dragged EA into the case hoping to distract from Activisionís wretched conduct towards West and Zampella," Robert Schwartz, a lawyer for the two developers, said in an e- mailed statement. "In dismissing EA today, Activision admits that it was never going to convince anyone that EA conspired with West and Zampella to breach their contracts or did anything else improper."

"Fenady's allegedly received these orders from former chief legal officer (and current chief policy officer) George Rose, who assured Fenady that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick would protect him from any problems that should arise while tapping into West and Zampella's work email, computer, and phones.

Fenady quotes Rose as saying, "Bobby [Kotick] will take care of you. This comes from Bobby directly... Don't worry about the repercussions."

When carrying out the investigation, which became known as "Project Icebreaker," Fenady contacted Microsoft and digital security company InGuardians, hoping to gain covert access to West and Zampella's passwords and data. Both companies refused to help, however, as they didn't want to face any legal complications.

Fenady even testified that with Rose's blessing, he and his team discussed staging a fake fumigation or mock fire drill at Infinity Ward, keeping West and Zampella away from their computers long enough to allow Activision to image the contents of their work computers."

Who would have though this was the kind of shit Kotick tries to pull?Oh that's right, everyone.